


To Be A Wonderer, Wondering.

by Vicarious_Virgo



Series: I’ll put down my roots when I’m dead [3]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hypothermia, Ranboo Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo Has a Tail (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Recovery, Whump, no beta we die like men, not edited, will update tags as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicarious_Virgo/pseuds/Vicarious_Virgo
Summary: Ranboo and the people he meets after Devil Town.((Pls read the rest of the series to understand what’s happening lol))
Relationships: platonic - Relationship
Series: I’ll put down my roots when I’m dead [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083224
Comments: 12
Kudos: 135





	1. To Waste Away Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Yoooooooo  
> A lot of planning has gone into the idea for this lol. That’s why it took so long but now I know where I’m going with this! Sorry the first chapter is short big yikes.
> 
> Follows directly after the events of Devil Town. 
> 
> Enjoy <3

Ranboo felt the blazing warmth of Devil town fade away as he made his distance. He looked down at his hands, blankly admiring the ash decorating his gloves and the burnt edges of his sleeves. He can feel his eyes stinging as each breath tore its way through his lungs. The cold air felt like honey over his charred feeling lungs at the same time,the cold air burned. He found himself still taking deep breathes. 

Ranboo could feel the snow soaking through his boots, melting through his socks. Yet, with his head silent and freedom urging him on, the hybrid kept walking. 

Behind him, a grey building finally collapsed on itself. Sins and demons alike burning in the cold winter air.

* * *

He walks. 

He isn’t too sure where. He isn’t too sure of much anymore. He isn’t sure when numbness chilled through his gloves and shoes. Isn’t too sure when the sun began setting the sky ablaze with warm sunlight, definitely not sure when the smoke in his lungs was replaced by a stinging cold. 

Ranboo isn’t sure when the wave of mental numbness finally washes away. All he knows is that he was in his room and now he’s free. Red and green eyes hidden behind a pair of dark tinted glasses looked down at his hands. 

The tips of the cloth were slightly singed where his finger tips were. A dark substance was a stark contrast to his white glove. Now standing still in the snow, he rubbed two fingers together that were covered in the substance. 

Flint. 

~~A burning book on a burning bed spreading to the building spreading to the prisoners spreading to the guards spreading to the man spreadingspreadingspreading-~~

He was free. 

Ranboo keeps walking even as his eyes begin slipping shut. He keeps going even if each movement feels weighed down. He tried to keep moving as his stomach growls and as the wind picks up. Ranboo keeps moving because the tree line is twenty feet in front of him. He keeps moving, praying no one would notice the patches sewed onto his blazer. Ranboo keeps moving, ignoring the smoke rising in the sky.

When he finally breaks the tree line, he sees it. A massive house, almost a mansion. Ranboo feels like he should be excited by the sight but his eyes are so heavy. He’s so cold but he can still feel the warmth of a giant fire deep in his bones. He’s so cold and sleep seems to warm. 

He can’t feel his legs.

He’s laying in the snow now. The substance soaking through the rest of his suit, scribbling burns over the scar littered canvas of his skin. Maybe he could remember screaming from the contact of the water on his skin. But right now, as his eyes finally begin closing he feels bliss. Ranboo feels light as a feather and unburdened for the first time ever. 

Ranboo’s eyelids battle with themselves. Opening and closing, showing him the cabin and then hiding it. Showing him a figure leaving it and coming closer. Showing him fur boots standing right in front of him. 

Showing him a blurred face. 

Showing him a wool blanket, and a contained fire. 

But he was so cold and if this is warmth then surely it’s death, right? 

His eyes finally close after that.


	2. In That Big Old House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> High key proud of this, hope y’all enjoy <3

“Mom, what’s wrong? Where’s dad?” 

The eyes he’s seeing through aren’t his, and the voice he speaks with isn’t his. The arms clutching a soft bunny plush aren’t his. The house around him is familar, and he finds himself surprised the roof in perfect condition. 

The house is clean, which also strikes him as odd. Well, the house is clean minus the broken bowls near the kitchen wall. A shattered clay pot lies next to the bowel, dirt and a purple flower next to it. Stew stains the wooden walls.

“Nothing is wrong-“ The woman’s lips move, yet the only noise that he hears is the gentle strumming of a guitar. The noise is coming from behind him. The woman looks at him, tear filled purple eyes meeting his. She reaches out to him, and her comfort calls to him. The guitar strumming calls louder. 

He turns around.

The sight of a man’s back greets him. The only thing he can make out is pearly white skin, grey veins barely visible. He’s holding a guitar and even though the man isn’t singing, he can hear the gentle melody of the lyrics. 

_But have you heard the story of the rabbit in the moon?_

_Or the cow that hopped the planets while straddling a spoon_

_Or she, who leapt up mountains, while whistling up a tune_

_And swapped her songs with swallows while riding on a broom_

He hummed the lyrics subconsciously, a voice rising behind him. He turned around once more, the song fading slightly. It was still there, but now the sound of a ringing bell was much louder. 

_Well, we can all learn things, both many and a-few_

“Do you remember what that sound means?” 

“I do,” he answers. But he wants to say no. He doesn’t remember. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see figures running past the window as yelling grows louder. The song still plays. 

_From that old hunched-up woman who lived inside a shoe_

“Good. That means you hide, right?” Purple tear filled eyes filled with acceptance.

He- is this him?- nods. He isn’t holding the plush. 

_Or the girl that sang by day and by night she ate tear soup_

He blinks and suddenly he’s being forced into a chest. Purple eyes are staring down at him as the woman begins closing the chest. Twinkling tears burn their way down her face before he speaks. 

“Will Dad be okay?” 

_Or the man who drank too much and he got the brewers' droop_

Her eyes harden for a moment, anger, sadness, and regret forming a confusing picture for him. 

“I don’t know, baby.” 

“Can you sing before you hide?” 

“Of course. Stay here-“ her word is replaced by static. “- Don’t come out until I come get you-“ 

“But-“ 

“Even if I stop singing-“ the static replaces the word again. “I love you.” His vision is filled with darkness as the chest clicks shut. For a moment, the only thing he hears is his own breathing before the melody continues. 

_”Come listen, all ye fair maids, to how the moral goes_

_Nobody knew and nobody knows_

_How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes_

_Or how the Dong came to own a luminous nose.”_

He listen as she sniffles, the sounds outside the building growing louder. 

_”But have you heard the story of the rabbit in the moon?_

_Or the cow that hopped the planets while straddling a spoon_

_Or she, who leapt up mountains, while whistling up a tune.”_

The door opens with a bang, the sound silencing the woman’s singing. He can steal hear the gentle strumming of the guitar, and he focuses on that and not the screaming and begging from the woman- He focuses on the next line. 

_”And swapped her songs with swallows while riding on a broom.”_

Instead of hearing it in his head, he hears it directly on his right side. He turns despite the small space and is met with empty eye sockets and a familar face. 

“Wake up.”

* * *

Ranboo’s eyes blink open slowly, the action taking so much energy he almost drifted off again. For a few moments, all he does is stare up at the spruce ceiling. His mind is blissfully empty, and all of his limbs have regained feeling. Laying across his chest is a thick wool blanket, and under his head was a cool pillow. 

It was a stark contrast to the blanket and pillow in- 

Out of the corner of his eye, the flickering of a fire greeted him. With effort, he turned to face it. He should feel panicked by the sight. Should feel panicked by the sight of the controlled heat that he was forced to test his endurance too- 

Instead the feeling was akin to seeing a familar face. Fire. Interesting thing it is. No heartbeat, no body, but it does have lungs. It eats, it grows and it expands. Would that mean fire is alive? 

Ranboo thinks so. 

With great effort, he sits up. His back pops at the movement, each of his limbs seeming to protest in some way. His head spins at the motion, his stomach copying the feeling. His spine pops, and his tail aches as he moves it experimentally. His hands and feet are next. He wiggles his toes and finds them stiff, but moveable. The same with his fingers. 

Ranboo pushes himself to his feet, the wood under his (newly?) socked feet. He looked down at himself, taking in the thick cotton white long sleeve engulfing his skinny frame. A pair of sweatpants hang from his hips and he ignored how familar the feel. 

~~Same material. We’re back. They found us.~~

_But these are blue...the ones they had were grey._

He shivers despite the nearby fire, bringing his arms up to hug himself. Oddly, he finally notices the bandages stopping at his wrist. Why hadn’t he seen them earlier? His other hand is completely covered with the bandages. 

He rolls up one of his sleeves, noticing how the bandages neatly spiral up his arms and stop cleanly at his elbows. Both arms are identical other than the left one, which has all of his fingers covered. 

The chill comes back and Ranboo finds himself looking down at the blanket. He had been asleep on a cot of some sort. He bends down slightly, his back protesting slightly, and flinches as his ribs flare with a faint pain. He immediately straightens up and tried again, this time more slowly. 

He gets low enough for his arms to reach the blankets and hangs it from his shoulders. The blanket completely wraps around his shoulders with how big it is. Carefully, he holds it with his hand that’s free of the finger bandages. 

~~Walking through a destroyed house, a faint stain on the ground-~~

Once he has protection from the cold, he begins moving. His knees struggle against their bandages at first, but eventually he moves almost as fluidly as before. His feet fall silent against the floorboards, and he finds himself taking note of every door and window. 

Ranboo mapped the place out as he kept walking. The house itself was huge, massive hallways leading to lavishly decorated hallways. Paintings hung from walls free of any dust. 

Eventually, he finds himself standing in front of a grand staircase. A purple carpet decorated the stone stairs. There’s one staircase in front of him that leads to a platform from there, the path splits to two different staircases. One goes to the left and one to the right, leading to the same second level. Ranboo forces himself to keep his head from tilting, who needed this many stairs? 

There’s a painting hanging over the stairs, or rather on the wall right behind them. A woman with purple hair stared back at him with a smile, a man in a red shirt standing beside where she sat. A hand was resting on the woman’s shoulder, a gold band in his ring. 

Married couple. 

Ranboo kept walking. 

The front door was just to the right of the stairs- but if anyone here knew then he should just get rid of them now. Stay in the house longer, heal up and wait out the snow. 

~~But they helped us-~~

_How many time did the others heal us only for me to be hurt again?_

He entered the hallway passed the staircase when a thought hit him. His ears swiveled, sensitive for any noise while he stood still. He raised his bandaged hand to his face, right next to his mouth and pressed down. Instead of the smooth texture of the bandages on his fingers, he felt the familar fabric of his mask against his face. 

_Odd. Good, but odd._

He continued walking, his footsteps silent to his own ears. He stumbles across a dining room. Despite his senses, his stomach seems to pilot himself into the room. A grand table takes up most of the room, but across from it is what seems to be a bar. Stools are tucked underneath the counter. Ranboo finds himself not surprised that the bar conjoins the dining room and kitchen. 

He does find himself surprised to see a container of cupcakes on the bar counter. A glass plate under them while a similar covering is over it. Purple frosting decorated chocolate cake, a cherry delicately balancing on the top of the frosting not leaving a single dent. Maybe it was the childish part of Ranboo that somehow survived everything, or maybe it was the sickening hunger in his stomach, but he finds himself swiftly crossing the room. 

Ranboo almost trips over the blanket but catches himself barely in time. Carefully and slowly, a hand peaks out from the blanket and he reaches it to the glass lid over the cupcakes, fully focused on the food he lifts up the lid. He can almost taste how sweet the frosting is, how the cake will softly crumble when he bites into it, can imagine the cherry adding a pop of flavor. The lid is almost completely off now, his shaking hands making the process slow he’s almost there when- 

“You’re awake.” 

The lid slips from his hands, falling to cover the desserts again. He almost winced at the sound the glass made but he holds it back. Instead, he looks into the kitchen and sees a woman with grey hair looking back at him. 

She’s the same woman in the painting over the stairs, Ranboo’s mind supplies. Her once vibrant hair is heavily greyed out, age and gravity pulling some of her skin into wrinkles. Smile lines are on the edge of her mouth, and her eyes still twinkle. 

~~I wonder if our eyes still sparkle~~

“How do you feel?” Her voice is sweet, not quite like honey but it’s still sweet. Ranboo still finds himself on edge, his hands desperate for the grip of a pickaxe or anything. In fact, under the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, his fingers curl as if the tool were in his hands. 

~~As if he were back on the islands. As if a crown still rested on his head-~~

_Wait, where is my crown?_

~~As if he were a monster enjoying the noises of metal meeting flesh because it was all a game-~~

“Hey, it’s okay if you won’t want to talk right now. You’re probably confused. I found you out in the backyard in the snow. You were out there for awhile before I found you, I bet. I’m making rabbit stew. Take a seat.” 

With a smile, she motions to the dining room table and after a few seconds of neither of them saying nothing, he takes a seat that faces the kitchen. He watches as the woman stires a pot over a small fire. 

_But the cupcakes-_

~~Were probably poisoned. Monsters don’t deserve good things~~

Ranboo continues to watch as the woman moves around the kitchen. The room seems much too big for just one person to be cooking in there. He pulls the blanket further up, making himself seem smaller as she finished pouring soup into a bowl. There’s a door on the right side of the bar, and Ranboo’s eyes still track the elder as she places the bowl in front of him. 

“It’s still hot, be careful.” Soft white smoke curls up from the bowl, filling Ranboo’s nose with a beautiful aroma. His stomach growls as the woman takes a seat across from him. The silence settles around the two as the woman begins eating. She seems to realize something though, quickly chewing before looking up at him. 

“My name is Tiffany by the way. You don’t have to tell me yours, I recognize you.”

The sentence causes a ball of lead to settle in his stomach as he lowers his gaze to the soup. 

~~I could probably throw the bowl at her, it’s still hot.~~

“It was easy to read on your blazer,” she pauses to eat another spoonful of soup. Ranboo’s ears easily detect the sound. “You’re safe here, this used to be a sanctuary for kids like you, you know? Hasn’t been in a long time.” 

Ranboo looks up at her, his eyes focusing on her eyebrow instead of her eye. He could tell she also avoided meeting his eyes. 

Huh. 

“I don’t know how you found it, but we’ll keep you safe for as long as you stay.” 

With a protest from his throat and mouth, he speaks. “...We?” 

She hums and takes another bite. Hunger claws at his stomach at the action. With his free hand, he motions towards the mask. A look of understanding crosses Tiffany’s face. She turns around, moving her chair before sitting back down. Her bowl of soup now resting on her lap. 

“We’re on the outskirts of a village, a quiet little town. Most of the people are nice.” She shrugs. 

Ranboo lowers the mask so it rests just under his chin, the rough skin around his mouth and chin exposed. The cold air stings for a moment as he reaches for his spoon. He scoops some soup into the spoon and shakily raises it to his mouth. 

His jaw protests at the action, barely opening at all. He forces it open enough to get the spoon in anyway. Ranboo knows it could open more. Once the soup hits his tongue, he feels like he might cry. 

~~Rule 9.~~

His taste buds feel like they might explode from the flavor. The broth is perfectly seasoned and it warms him from the inside as he swallows it. The rabbit meat in it is tender and juicy, and he finds himself so thankful the food exists even if he normally is indifferent about it. 

Before he knows it, the bowl is empty. He finds himself disappointed, and maybe it’s because he’s still tired, but he feels slightly frustrated. He should’ve savored it more, should’ve went slower- who knew is this was the last thing he ate in awhile. What if that was one of the rules? 

~~Frustrated at the fact he can’t get the can open and mom won’t wake up- and he’s so tired and cold- mom please wake up-~~

“..I-I’m done. Thank you, ma’am.” He mumbles, breaking the silence as he replaces the mask to its previous spot over his mouth. 

Tiffany stands up and turns to look at him. An empty bowl in her hands and a smile on her face. 

“I think we’ll get along well, Ranboo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made myself hungry describing that cupcake ngl 
> 
> Also, CaveTown is now cannon in this fic. As well as the song “Moss.” Because I said so. 
> 
> ((Also it’s a band instead of a single person because just imagine a Silverfish hybrid, a bat hybrid, and a cave spider hyped making a band. Sounds amazing.)) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Make sure to drink some water and take care of yourself, you absolute legend! 
> 
> ["Playlist" <3](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1mwMm7pVpB39QPK7Mq5FEP?si=ECajxUARTeOfz3rNpA4IEA)


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